Riser by Becca C Smith

Synopsis:

Black swirling holes churning madly in the center of every corpse. This is how eighteen-year-old Chelsan Derée sees the deceased. Her ability to connect to the black spinning holes allows her to control every dead thing within a four-mile radius.

But that's the least of her problems. It's 2320 and Chelsan Derée has to survive another year of high school, which for her is pure and utter torture, mainly due to the fact that her schoolmate Jill Forester's favorite activity is making Chelsan's life a living hell. If that isn't enough, Chelsan's impossible crush on Ryan Vaughn makes her brain do somersaults on a regular basis, especially since she is positive he doesn't know she exists. And being eighteen Chelsan has to deal with the pressure of whether or not she should take a little pill called Age-pro, which cures aging, making the world eighteen forever and highly over-populated. 

When Chelsan's mother, Janet, is brutally killed, along with everyone else in her trailer park, Chelsan finds out that she was the intended target. Chelsan must use her power to raise and control the dead to save herself, protect her friends and take down the man responsible for murdering her mother.


 

Review:

Chelsan Derée is not your average teenage girl.  She has a special ability.  She can connect with the dead.  No, not the ghost whisperer kind of connection.  She can animate them; make them her personal cadaver puppets.  Chelsan does not know where this ability comes from.  She's kept it secret from her mother and best friends.  Until, one day, her mother and everyone else in her trailer park are murdered.  As her mother lays dying, she connects with Chelsan and reveals the truth of her ability.  Reveals who her father was and more importantly who her grandfather is.

Riser is book #1 in the Riser Saga.  It is set in the year 2320.  The world is over populated thanks to the invention of a little pill known as Age-Pro.  Age-Pro stops the aging process.  No more dying of old age or diseases.  People are driving hover-cars and the use of paper has been outlawed; gotta save those trees for all the oxygen needed.  Geoffrey Turner is Vice President of Population Control, the most powerful position in the world, and he's Chelsan's grandfather.  Oh yeah and he wants her dead. 

This book was fast paced.  It had a lot of action and was full of your typical teenage angst.  You had your snotty-girl bully, high school crush, and a bit of a love triangle.  Chelsan and her friends form this unbreakable bond and go up against her grandfather.  One negative thing that really stood out was one of the male leads punched a girl in the face.  I don't care how much the girl deserved it.  The punch could have been delivered by one of the two girls present in the scene.  This was supposed to be one of the good guys.  That action right there made me loose some respect for him.  Other than that it was a pretty good read.  I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Bio:

Becca C Smith received her Film degree from Full Sail University and has worked in the Film and Television industry for most of her adult life.

Becca is the author of the teen horror/sci-fi novel, Riser. She is also the co-author of the teen graphic novel Ghost Whisperer: The Haunted and also wrote and illustrated Little Family Secrets, a graphic novel based on the true story of her great aunt who was famous for murdering her husband.

She currently lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband and two cats Jack and Duke.

Twitter  https://twitter.com/#!/beccacsmith

Goodreads  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4201733.Becca_C_Smith
Website  http://www.therisersaga.com/ 
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Riser-Saga/140711422626243